Vagrant Story

Some of this Quintet stuff, some of the, um-

Yeah, can we get a Vagrant Story square? That'd be pretty cool.

Yeah, that's like sitting around for sure.

I mean, that's why-

Toad Abravia Kickstarter campaign is underway.

This is a turn-based 2D RPG inspired by Chrono Trigger, Mario RPG, and Vagrant Story.

And you're playing as a toad.

Actually, no, it looks more like a monkey.

But what would be your perfect future video game? If it could, you could make it, you could, like I say, it could be something that already exists, or it could be that, that I wanna make a, this type of game with these people doing that.

I have always said I would love to see, and I don't think we ever will see, but I would love to see a current gen remake of Vagrant Story.

I don't know if you know what Vagrant Story is.

Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, but he's translated, uh, Yasumi Matsuno's script.

Um, and this is the guy who went on to make Final Fantasy XII and the Final Fantasy Tactics games.

Um, and they all, and Vagrant Story as well as those other games share sort of like this common feel-

Square Enix had not only been solely making games for Nintendo at that point.

They had games like Vagrant Story and things like that on the original PlayStation.

So this was not a... all of a sudden jump ship move and you and you know these things happen with technology and i'm sure console manufacturers like any other one will go well where's where's the industry moving do we move with it or do we not nintendo decided not to and square picked up their ball and went elsewhere that's fine but they still have a great relationship with square now no massive damage was done they still have an amazing catalog of iconic characters to fall back on.

Probably, arguably one of the finest in gaming or certainly the longest running, the most long.

of a

beautiful video game called Vagrant Story for the PlayStation 1.

Oh.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

I never had a PlayStation 1, so I grabbed a handful of games, one of which is Metal Gear Solid.

Another is Parasite Eve, which I have more on that later from this podcast.

And then the third being Vagrant Story, which...

i didn't know what to expect i had no idea what this game was but i thought the discussion was so interesting that i had to just give it a shot um and it's it's very i don't know i think they described it into the ether is almost like stockholm syndrome-esque of like the game at least the the mechanics of the game the vibes are immaculate like there's there's real cinematography there's some an interesting plot and interesting setting um the the character design is sick ashley riot is a cool person and then the mechanics are like i don't know it's like reading a grimoire there's like it's it's inscrutable some of these things like you you need some outside information on what half of these mechanics mean but damn if i'm not enraptured by them every time I put the game down and I'm like you know what I think I've seen enough I think I've experienced enough I don't need to you know finish this game by any means I just wanted to experience a good chunk of it and then I'm just thinking about like but it's so weird the way it's all set up and like the the ATB sphere combat you know that's like it's ATB but it's not but it's also like action combat but there's also like timing mechanics and then you know the way like it's a lot your weapons change their elements based on the enemies that they're fighting and like there's almost like a you know like a Pokemon type like effectiveness with those elements so you have to like change your weapon per each enemy it's so inscrutable but I feel like I'm slowly learning it piece by piece in a way that that is really like i don't know i feel like um someone's like cracking an egg over my brain like it's just like melts down in a way that is is satisfying i don't know have either of you played this game no i um

... that's like-

To Vagrant Story head Brendan.

Yeah.

Yeah, to being like, "Hey, Steven, I think you should give Dragon Quest another shot." You know? [laughs]

He was, uh, the translator of Final Fantasy X.

He did Vagrant Story.

He's the one who set the tone, I think, on the Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, as picked by Tonda Ross, the creator of Blueprints on My Perfect Console.

Um, anyway, so glad to have facilitated that conversation, uh, Chris.

couple things though like using the the shoulder buttons to control the camera that sucks uh the original shadow of the colossus had an inverted x-axis which i thought was just fucking insane or had an option for it yeah yeah um so stuff like that uh is something that's really commonly pointed out as aging uh poorly controls in general

the other thing is um uh menu design yeah i feel like this is a big thing with uh jrpgs in particular like uh where we played Vagrant Story.

I was just going to say Vagrant Story.

But the truth is even something as popular and mainstream as Final Fantasy VII, in my opinion, still has an absolute nightmare of a menu system.

The way that it will populate blank slots in your menu and then something will appear 40 entries down because that's the place it belongs.

I just don't think that that... creating tension or something like that by making you menu faster.

I don't think that's a super interesting way of doing combat.

So, um, that's, I think what I want to focus on more than just, uh, yeah, the men vagrant story aside, those are a fucking disaster of an experience to use.

But it was, like, the last hurrah for Square, but they put one fantastic game after another out every month that summer.

It was, like, Legend of Mana, uh, I think Vagrant Story.

I can't believe I still remember this.

Vagrant Story, Threads of Fate.

Was it Chrono Cross? That might've been the last one.

I don't know.

But, like, every one of those games were good.

Every one of those games were...